British Museum sets up Emergency Heritage Mgt Programme

The British Museum intends to recruit two archaeologists for an initial period of five years who have extensive field experience in the region. They will lead a six-month training programme to run twice a year. Five heritage sector Iraqi professionals will be invited for each course, spending three months at the British Museum and three months in Iraq.

The programme will cover techniques of rescue archaeology, 3D scanning, digitization of objects and documents, emergency retrieval strategies, forensic collection and documentation methodologies, multi-purpose photographic training and principles of conservation and restoration.

These archaeologists will return to Iraq with the trainees to put into practice the skills and techniques they have learned. They will set up programmes within their respective institutions to develop strategies to cope with the very diverse requirements of archaeological site management.

Training excavation projects will be established jointly with the State Board of Antiquities of Iraq to teach detailed techniques of rescue archaeology. The sites selected for investigation initially will be in the more secure regions of Iraq - to the north (Kurdistan) and the south (Basra region).

The effect of this rolling programme will be to create a large and well-trained team of professionals that can cope with the full range of archaeological heritage needs. A team which will be ready when it once again becomes possible to access these sites.